Late on the night of November 19 local time, Microsoft CEO Nadella announced on X (formerly Twitter) that OpenAI founder and former CEO Sam Altman and former president Greg Brockman (Greg Brockman) and other employees who have left OpenAI will join Microsoft. Altman and Brockman both retweeted the tweet, writing “The mission continues” in the caption. At 1 a.m. on November 20, Emmett Shear, the former CEO of Amazon’s game live platform Twitch, also sent a long message on X, saying that after discussing with his family and thinking for a few hours, he will accept the interim CEO position of OpenAI. At this point, the OpenAI “coup drama” that lasted nearly 60 hour from the official opening finally came to an end.
Precursor on the evening of November 16
16 November, after attending a day of events, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, received a message from Ilya Sutskever, co-founder and chief scientist of OpenAI, asking him to meet at noon the next day. That same evening, Mira Murati, OpenAI’s chief technology officer, was informed that Altman was leaving.
Nov. 17, the drama began
At noon on Nov. 17
Altman joined the board of directors for a meeting that was attended by all board members except board Chairman Greg Brockman. Sutzkevi informs Altman at the meeting that he will be fired and that public information will be released soon.
At 12:19 a.m.
Brockman, OpenAI’s co-founder and president, got a call from Sutzkevi. At 12:23, Sutzkevi sent Brockman a link to the Google meeting. During the meeting, Brockman learns that he will be removed from the board but will remain with the company, while Altman is about to be fired.
Around the same time
Microsoft, OpenAI’s largest shareholder and partner, learned the news from OpenAI. At around 12:30 a.m., OpenAI’s board of directors announced that Altman would be stepping down as CEO and leaving the company because “he has not been consistently candid in his communications with the board.” Muratti will serve as interim CEO, effective immediately. The announcement also announced that Brockman was stepping down as chairman of the board “as part of the personnel changes,” but would remain with the company.
Some OpenAI employees and investors said they didn’t learn of any of this until after OpenAI’s announcement. Brockman said that in addition to Mulati, OpenAI’s management is the same.
Later,
OpenAI held an all-hands meeting, where Sutzkvi said the decision to oust Altman was the right one.
At 1:21 p.m.,
Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt posted on the X platform, calling Altman his “hero” : “He built a $90 billion company from nothing and changed our world forever.” I can’t wait to see what he does next.”
At 4:09 p.m.,
Brockman retweeted Altman, announcing his departure from the company: “I’m proud of everything we’ve built, and it all started 8 years ago in my apartment. Together, we have achieved so much and overcome so many obstacles. But, based on today’s news, I resigned. Good luck to all, and I will continue to believe in the mission of creating AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) that is safe and can benefit all of humanity.”
At 9 p.m.,
Altman responded with two tweets, thanking everyone for their concern, calling it a “weird day,” and sarcastically writing, “If I fire at OpenAI, the board will go after the full value of my stock holdings.” Previously, Altman has repeatedly said publicly that he does not own OpenAI stock. According to foreign media reports, in order to express support for Altman and Brockman, at least three senior researchers at OpenAI resigned that night. In addition, the Google Deepmind team received many resumes from OpenAI that night.
On Nov. 18, expected reversal
The morning,
OpenAI chief operating Officer Brad Lightcap told employees that security was not the primary reason the board ousted Altman, but rather attributed it to a “communication failure.” According to several foreign media reports, since the morning of the 18th, OpenAI employees and investors have begun to pressure the board of directors together with Microsoft, asking the board to withdraw the decision to remove Altman and remove his director position.
At 5:35 p.m.,
The Verge, citing people close to Altman, reported that the board had agreed in principle to reinstate Altman and Brockman, and that Altman was “conflicted” about returning to OpenAI. Since the board reached its conclusion past the 5 p.m. deadline requested by several previous OpenAI employees, if Altman does decide to leave, these internal supporters are likely to follow him.
That night,
Altman wrote in a thoughtful post on X: “I deeply love the OpenAI team.” Many OpenAI employees retweeted the tweet with a heart symbol, including Brockman, Murati, and the official ChatGPT account.
On November 19, he joined Microsoft
At noon on the 19th,
according to foreign media reports, Altman and Brockman both returned to the company to participate in negotiations with the board of directors. Altman then posted a photo of himself holding an OpenAI visitor card on X with the caption: “First and last time I wear one of these.”
After 2 p.m.,
In response to a tweet that questioned whether people were too unanimous in their support for Altman, Elon Musk, who co-founded OpenAI with Altman and others, replied: “It is very important that the public know why the board of directors has decided so strongly.” If this is about AI safety, it will affect the entire planet.” This is the first time Musk has publicly commented on the OpenAI personnel earthquake. Later, Musk commented in a number of related tweets, urging the board to make public the reasons for ousting Altman.
On the evening of the 19th,
A source familiar with the matter revealed to foreign media that OpenAI interim CEO Murati plans to re-hire the two people who were fired, and the specific positions have not yet been determined.At the time,Mulatti was in talks with Adam D ‘Angelo, the chief executive of Quora and a board representative.
However, soon after,
another source revealed that the OpenAI board will hire Emmett Shear as CEO, replacing founder Altman. Sher is an American entrepreneur, best known as the founder and former CEO of Twitch, a video game streaming platform owned by Amazon.com Inc. On the evening of the 19th, at nearly 24 o ‘clock, Microsoft CEO Nadella suddenly issued a message announcing that Altman, Brockman and the former OpenAI employees who followed them to leave will join Microsoft to lead a “new advanced AI team.”
Post time: Nov-21-2023
